My daughter is terrified and there’s pain in her smile, says Meghan’s dad
THE Duchess of Sussex looks ‘terrified’ and is masking the stress of her new life as a royal with a ‘pained smile’, says her father.
In a bombshell interview, Thomas Markle also criticised the ‘ridiculous’ dress code Meghan has to abide by and claimed the royal family shuns him because of its ‘asinine’ rules.
The 73-year- old admitted Meghan has not spoken to him for almost two months and pleaded with her to get in touch because he ‘could actually die soon’ and wanted to ‘clear the air’ and tell her how proud he is of her.
But he said the phone number he has been calling her on ‘is no longer picking up’. Mr Markle’s latest comments are likely to cause further disquiet at Kensington Palace following his previous indiscretions.
First, there was the furore over staged paparazzi photographs ahead of the wedding; then, in another interview, he repeated private conversations with his son-in-law Prince Harry.
In the new interview, Mr Markle said: ‘My thing about my daughter right now is that I think she is terrified. I see it in her eyes, I see it in her face and I see it in her smile.
‘I’ve seen her smile for years. I know her smile. I don’t like the one I’m seeing now. This one isn’t even a stage smile – this is a pained smile. I think she’s under too much pressure. There’s a high price to pay to be married to that family.’ Mr Markle has watched former television actress Meghan, 36, adjust to her new life from his rented home in Rosarito, Mexico.
In the interview with The Sun on Sunday, he said: ‘My daughter’s very controlling. She likes to be in charge.’ He added that the clothes which Meghan wears on duty made her look ‘like something out of an old movie’, and asked: ‘Why do they have to cover her knees?’
Last month Mr Markle was paid £7,500 and flown to a hotel in California to speak to ITV’s Good Morning Britain. It came weeks after Meghan issued a statement describing the relationship between them as ‘deeply personal’.
In that interview Mr Markle said Harry told him he was ‘open’ to Brexit and that people needed to ‘give Trump a chance’.
There have also been reports of
‘I think she’s under too much pressure’
Mr Markle’s sadness at not receiving a Father’s Day card from his daughter and a bizarre outburst about Donald Trump’s meeting with the Queen.
‘If the Queen is willing to meet our arrogant and insensitive president,’ he was quoted as saying by the US gossip website TMZ, ‘she has no excuse not to meet me, I’m nowhere near as bad.’
In the interview published yesterday, Mr Markle said he is being ‘ shunned’ by the royal family because he made a profit from the staged paparazzi pictures taken before his daughter married Prince Harry. He said: ‘Anyone who makes a becomes profit shunned. off the So royal if I family moved to London and started selling cups with my daughter’s face on, would they shun me? The royal family is living by rules that are asinine.’ He said he would, for the rest of his life, have to live down missing his daughter’s wedding because he was recovering after heart surgery.
Mr Markle last spoke to Meghan ‘briefly’ after the May 19 wedding at Windsor Castle.
Since then, the number he had been calling her on ‘is no longer picking up’, he said.
He said his message to Meghan would be: ‘I love you, I miss you, I am sorry for anything that went wrong. I just want to be her child’s grandfather and I want to be near them. I want to be part of their life.’ Kensington Palace declined to comment.